The present invention generally relates to knowledge acquisition. More particularly, the invention provides a method for web based searching of a database or databases in the health care field. The database can be selected from custom or commercial databases, e.g., the U.S. Government's Medline database of scientific articles (hereinafter “Medline”).
Conventional ways of finding desirable hospitals and doctors are very limiting. For example, most doctors, who specialize in a selected area of practice, are often uncovered by a referral, which is generally word of mouth from one person to another person. Most often, such word of mouth is from a family member, co-worker or the like. Similarly, a desirable hospital is often found through a referral mechanism, as well. Depending upon such referral, doctor and/or hospital quality has been difficult to control. So, consumers do not presently have a reliable, objective method to find a desirable doctor and/or health care providers.
There have been some attempts to uncover experts in the healthcare field through printed documents. Such printed documents include, among others, periodicals, etc. To identify such experts in a field who may be able to comment on breaking health news stories, consumers must often conduct extensive research or use limited, non-objective printed guides. Similarly, other professionals in the field such as the media also need to perform extensive research and the like to find such breaking heath news stories. Still further, makers of healthcare policy and reimbursement programs desire methods to identify centers of excellence around which specialized health care services could be consolidated. Accordingly, it is often difficult to uncover such experts in the healthcare field using conventional techniques.
From the above, it is seen that a technique for improving access to information is highly desirable.